In short...
Everybody under 5’2”, this column is for you. There are things you taller people will never understand. Literally, “under” stand. For example, you’ve never had to loiter in a store aisle until a tall person comes by so you can politely ask them to get something from the top shelf. (Thank you to all who happily reach things for us!)
A few incidents recently accentuated my lack of height. One was a road trip with nieces ranging from 5’10” to 6’ tall. It wasn’t so much having to walk a little faster to keep up, but it was getting in and out of the big truck. The back seat floorboard was about at my hip, or at least mid thigh. There was a grab bar. I could hoist myself up enough to swing one leg firmly inside, then holler “hoo-yah” and get the other half in. The hosting niece found a collapsible step stool in her garage and I used it during the visit to her town. At one stop, man saw me use it and laughed at me. I don’t care.
At a convention this summer, in a conference room for probably a thousand or more people, I opted in that session for a back row seat in case I wanted to leave early. Nobody was there, so I scooted about five or ten seats in. The row in front of me was empty. The laws of physics or something grants that if something is not right in front of you, your vision is not blocked. The closer it gets, the more it obstructs.
Here came the obstruction. A woman walked down that empty row of seats and sat down — you guessed it—right smack dab in front of me! I had to move, which was fine, but wondered if that woman really did not notice that she was blocking my view. It would have been different if that was the only vacant seat in the room, but she had a whole row!
Later, at another session with a similar room set up, a tall man and somewhat tall woman actually saw me and offered to move if I couldn’t see when they sat down and they weren’t even directly in front of me. I appreciated that!
More frequent reminders are things like using Grown Child’s car and not reaching the pedals until I fix the seat, opening the car door to lean toward the ATM, and using a step stool to clean my windshield.
Oh, well. I’m short. And so is the column this week.
